West Side might get K-8 charter school this fall

Sunday

The state's largest charter-school operator is eyeing Columbus' West Side as the perfect spot to open its first K-8 building in the city.

The state’s largest charter-school operator is eyeing Columbus’ West Side as the perfect spot to open its first K-8 building in the city.

Akron-based White Hat Management hopes to open a Signal Tree Academy in Columbus this fall that will focus on “21st Century Learning,” including technology and media, project-based teaching and global awareness. The private, for-profit charter operator runs two Life Skills Centers for high-school dropouts in the city.

White Hat thinks the new concept would be successful in the neighborhoods along W. Broad Street because several Columbus City Schools buildings there are low-performing.

Nineteen Columbus schools are on the West Side — many of them clustered around W. Broad Street — and nine have D or F grades on the latest state report cards. Four have a B, and six have a C.

White Hat said Signal Tree would compete with five of those schools, four of which received D’s: Hilltonia and Starling middle schools and Lindbergh and West Broad elementaries. The fifth, Wedgewood Middle, received a C.

In its application to open the school, the company said that Signal Tree could attract parents who are frustrated with traditional public schools, and that students in those schools “are in need of quality options.”

“Our goal is to open schools where there is a market demand for our product and where we can thrive,” Rodd Coker, vice president of community engagement for White Hat, said in an email.

Charter schools are tuition-free competition for traditional district schools. They are funded with tax dollars, but many charters are privately run.

Columbus City Schools spokesman Jeff Warner said the district is focused on improving schools on the West Side.

“We have an intense focus on strengthening neighborhood schools through feeder-pattern collaboration, the addition of the new STEM curriculum at West High School, and a renewed emphasis on ensuring that every child gets what they need to be successful,” he said in a statement. “We feel very confident that we have what families want and need for their children.”

Charter operators often conduct market studies to see where there’s the greatest need for schools, said Emmy Partin, director of Ohio policy and research for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Fordham, based in Dayton and Columbus, oversees several charter schools.

For example, Columbus Collegiate Academy, a charter middle school that Fordham oversees, opened its first school in the Weinland Park neighborhood. But the struggles of the Columbus school district’s West Side schools have prompted the academy to open a second outpost there next school year.

There are a handful of other West Side charters that Signal Tree also might compete with.

The Signal Tree school expects to have 250 students in its first year. That would draw about $1.8 million in state per-pupil money. White Hat’s projections show the school would have an average class size of 28 students in its first year, but that would grow to 36 in its fifth year of operation.

White Hat should know in a couple of weeks whether its Signal Tree schools — it wants to open six across the state — are a go, said Patrick Gallaway, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Education. White Hat wants the department to be its sponsor.

A new state law, which was pushed by White Hat, allows the department to sponsor up to five new charter schools next school year. White Hat is the only applicant for those spots, which will be chosen on a first-come, first-served basis, Gallaway said.

“Now the only issue would be in the case of any of those schools or all being rejected,” he said.

If the Signal Tree schools get the OK, White Hat says it can open them quickly. It would find a building, gut it and remodel it for classroom use in 20 weeks at a cost of about $1.2 million.

jsmithrichards@dispatch.com

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